Zayn liked having her next to him—too much. It suggested that she might be open to becoming the beta female, his mate. Which she absolutely fucking wouldn’t. She just liked to run fast.

She wasn’t surprised that he’d bristle at her keeping her distance for the first time. But right now, she needed to think. Was it too late to turn back home? Whatever was happening, she didn’t want to be a part of it. She wished she'd run with her clothes in her mouth—some women did, so that they could get changed if they needed to return to their human form. Normally, Avani didn't have enough modesty to hinder her run like that. Still, if she'd had her pants, she could have had her phone and called Knox for advice.

He'd told her—many times—that she could contact him if she ever needed to. She never had before, yet something told her that today, she should have.

She smelled a distinctive scent that made her come to an abrupt halt.

What the hell? She could smell…people. Regular humans. They were approaching a village, or maybe a gathering, she couldn't tell.

When the pack left Oldcrest on their supervised outings, they normally headed to Edinburgh, bypassing the smaller towns. Why waste their one day of freedom on boring little places so very similar to their own village? They went to shop, party, eat, and fuck. Avani wasn't very well versed in Scottish geography. She knew that Inverness was somewhere north, a couple of hours away from Oldcrest. Fort William, the same distance south of their territory. There were a few towns closer. When they'd left the wards, she'd assumed they would have headed for the national park to the east. Why the hell were there humans nearby?

Her stomach sank. No, it couldn't be. Draiden wouldn't have ordered a hunt on humans. He couldn't have. Surely?

She shook her head in disbelief. She was just imagining this. He wasn't dumb enough, cruel enough for this, right?

The problem was, she wasn't so sure. Draiden was a dumb bully, just like his son, only older and more arrogant. There was a reason why she stayed away from the pack authority. The pack was strange. Sick.

But were they that sick? She didn't want to believe it.

Then the screams started.

She took off again, running fast to catch up with the rest of the pack. A mile ahead, she was close enough to see. They hadn't approached a town; it was a camping ground where fewer than a hundred tents had been erected. Ahead, the pack was chasing panicked humans who ran to their cars, attempting to flee as fast as they could.

The pack didn't care. She could see their strategy, analyzing it like the seasoned predator she was. They'd done it many times, with deer, hares, pheasants. Go for the herd, force them to run, and then once they'd headed out, go for the weakest ones left behind.

Her past flashed in her mind. The beach bonfire where she’d been attacked by a feral hadn’t been too dissimilar to this camp. Although she’d been too young to remember the details, she still had nightmares about feeling trapped, cornered. The fear had frozen her in her tracks. Then, there had been pain…

Monsters. Her pack would be the monsters in these people’s nightmares now.

Eleven cars rushed away, leaving three humans behind.

One young, one large, the last one, old.

And fifty wolves watched them like the snack they were to them, licking their lips in anticipation.

They leaped forward, Draiden's humongous light gray beast descending on the closest prey, the large man in his fifties. He went for the ankles to prevent him from running away, his powerful fangs breaking the skin.

Avani was going to be sick. They were really doing this. Little as she might have trusted or even liked most of her packmates, in her wildest dreams, she wouldn’t have imagined it. How could sweet Julie or vibrant, creative Leonora take part in the slaughter?

Even as the question popped in her mind, she knew the answer. Right now, the pack were wolves. Wild wolves affected by the blood moon. They wouldn’t have questioned their alphas at any time, but the human part of them that might have balked at attacking innocents was buried so deep there was no reaching it through the fog of bloodlust.

Avani’s gaze cut to the alpha. The only person in charge of this. He’d planned it. There was no blaming the wolf when Draiden had purposely led them out on a hunt out of their territory right now. It was all his fault.

The beta male, a slim but fast and muscular wolf with brown and white fur, closed in on the seventy-something human who was too weak to do anything except cry and beg. Yves wasn't one for subtlety. He went straight for the throat, wounding the woman fatally, although it'd take her a while to bleed out. Then he turned his attention to the teenager the rest of the pack was focused on, Zayn ahead of them. They could have killed or wounded him already, but the young boy was full of life, vibrant. Entertaining. They were playing with him. He'd grabbed a wooden log from the ground and was trying to beat them back. Silently, the beta and some enforcer were circling him to get him from behind while some youngsters kept him busy up front.

In the distance, the moon was red over the hills, bright and compelling. Avani watched it, half-expecting to feel her mind slip, her bestial nature to take over and demand she join in with the rest of her pack.

She couldn't recall consciously choosing to move, although she was suddenly running so fast she barely even felt the ground, restlessly pushing her legs to move, again and again and again.

She tackled the boy, hard enough to knock him down. She hadn’t been ordered to do anything. The rest of the pack was unmoving, somehow stunned and confused. So was the boy.

Now wasn't the time for him to freeze, dammit.

Avani dipped her head and whimpered, once, making her meaning as clear as possible. For a wild half-second, as the pack closed in, she thought the boy didn’t get it and she would have to shift to fight hand-to-hand. Thankfully, he got to his legs and jumped on her back.

He was a tall and lanky teen, weighing about a hundred pounds, but shifters were strong—stronger in their wolf forms.

She took off like her life depended on it.

And she knew it did. She'd gone against pack interest, against the lead of the alpha. She'd protected their prey, which was as good as siding with an enemy.

If—when—they caught up with her, they would have one clear order.

Kill her.

No one had ever beaten her in a race—not for years. But she had a hundred-pound human awkwardly riding her and pulling on her damn fur.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

That's what she got for having a damn conscience. What now?

Dream Island

In the long list of things that were toxic, mind-addling, and therefore irresistible to him, Alexius had a particular predilection for cigars. He had a few Cubans in his study that he kept for special occasions.

Zombies qualified. He sat on his balcony, a Cuban in one hand, a glass of port in the other, enjoying the warm August night. It was a blood moon, which meant that no doubt little Avani was up to a number of despicable things.

Part of him wanted to head over to the woods right now and join her, introduce himself, offer his services as her entertainment for the night. He'd had a wolf or two on blood moons. They were crazy in the best way. Even so, he doubted that Knox's request to look after her included the hundred ways he was thinking about pleasing her right now. Besides, entering the woods on a blood moon without an invitation was asking for many, many bites. Not the kinky kind.

He wasn't afraid of the pack, but at seventy against one, they could take just about anyone.

He'd have to introduce himself another day—and somehow make up for his dismissiveness last Sunday night. He'd been less than civil; she'd interrupted a good fuck—well, to be fair, an average one. With a walking corpse. No wonder he'd been irritable.

A lightning bolt cracked at his side, and he sighed as Seth Stormhale leaned on the white stone banister in front of him.

“You absolutely put the devil up it, didn’t you?” Seth’s words sounded intrigued and amused, more than accusatory.

Alexius feigned ignorance. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m aware that it’s British for fuck you, you know.” Seth pointed to the box of cigars. “Want to share the goods? You owe me.”

Alexius sighed again, but he threw the box in the direction of the annoying blond vampire in a tailcoat.

Seth caught it and pulled one cigar out, smelling it with appreciation.

A buzz of electricity crackled in the air, and one end of the cigar started to smoke.

“So, you didn’t fall for it? I underestimated you.”

Seth glared, taking his time inhaling smoke, and blew out a neat ring. “I absolutely fell for it. It was only when I was packing that I realized I’d been manipulated. And the Devil is far too straightforward to think about playing with my pride like this. ‘Don’t rush him, Mikar, getting close to the inner circle of our enemy is far too dangerous. He has to take his time.’”

Alexius laughed at Seth’s imitation of Levi’s lower, throatier accent.

“You jumped, didn’t you?”

Seth sneered, confirming his suspicion. Then he turned around, looking down to the long stretch of garden extending a hectare down the hill.

“I can’t blame you. I should have gone weeks ago. But I can’t deny this place was…peaceful. Without being boring or stuffy. I can understand why you guys live here.”

If Seth wasn’t aware of Alexius’s curse, he wasn’t going to enlighten him.

“You can always come back. The hill is officially yours and your sister’s, now that Levi has banished the rest of your clan.”

Seth snorted. “You mean, if I don’t die on the queen’s island.”

The silence that stretched wasn’t uncomfortable. Young—and yes, annoying—as Seth could be, Alexius didn’t dislike him.

Or maybe he was just that desperate for companionship and entertainment.

He did end up asking, “What was it like? The island.”

Seth snorted. “Like paradise. Imagine a world, hidden from humanity like Oldcrest, hidden from most vampires, shifters, and other sups, too. Scarcely twenty thousand square miles, but every single inch of that place made for us. The rulers of this world. Imagine marble columns and ivory sculptures, fountains of wine, rivers of blood. Imagine a glimmering palace at the center of it all, where there’s a party at any time of the day or night. Imagine blood donors so fucking beautiful they could make you come with one look. Imagine that they’re all into you. Not paid or bullied to be there; purely, honestly eager to please.”